Spectator's Journal: A Jour with the Tour
Stevenson, Matthew
SPECTATOR'S JOURNAL by Matthew Stevenson A Jour With the Tour E ver since I described Sam Abtthe author of many books about the Tour de France—in an academic journal as the "Marlow of...
...Sam's regret when we met was that we would be on our own for the day, as he was shortly to head up the mountain...
...Look, Danny," he said...
...The day before, as the leaders had accelerated on the final climb to Les Arcs, he had looked like Superman feeling the effects of kryptonite...
...As I had in mind neither William Shakespeare's contemporary nor Raymond Chandler's private eye, I wrote back to say the comparison was to Joseph Conrad's Marlow, the narrator of Heart of Darkness and other stories...
...Kurtz, before leaving for Africa, had ever raced in the Tour de France...
...A typical day's racing covers 120 miles in about five hours...
...Hence my first taste of Tour promotion was an espresso, elegantly served by Maison du Café, which sends among the crowd waves of attractive young women adorned with small cups of coffee and little else...
...It is possible to win the race without ever taking first in a stage...
...Olympus —the press area near the start where the riders were warming up...
...He was on the verge of losing his first Tour in six years...
...Danny looked up at Boardman and said, as only a child can: "You mean warming up...
...Maurice in the French Alps, we abandoned the car, despairing that we would find Sam at what looked like a state fair...
...Because I live in Switzerland, last year Sam and I made a date to spend a day with the Tour...
...Yes, he said, the bank sponsored a lot of sporting events, but for him it was just advertising — Miguel Indurain, the winner of five consecutive Tours, was media time...
...In an isolated corner of the press area, we were the only ones watching Boardman spin...
...Which Marlow(e) of professional racing do you think I am, Christopher or Philip...
...The Tour is also famous for its carnival atmosphere—the giveaways, water bottles, and product samples that get hurled from the publicity train as it rumbles around France...
...He was peddling furiously on a wind trainer, but his heart rate monitor flashed something ridiculously calm, such as 115 beats per minute...
...As Sam describes him: "In a chivalrous age Miguel Indurain would be the parfait knight: pure, serene, untroubled by second thoughts...
...As he chatted with a friend, both Rob and I took turns posing for pictures next to him, as though he were a cardboard Merckx set up on the main square in Brussels...
...Our first year in Europe, my wife used the excuse of the moving van's arrival to deny me the chance to see a prologue, or opening day, in Lyon...
...In subsequent letters both of us speculated as to whether Mr...
...Merckx won the Tour de France five times, the Giro in Italy three times, and countless one-day classics, like Paris-Roubaix, with a flair for relentless attacks...
...he inquired...
...At the far end there was even a Tour de France barber shop...
...Joseph Conrad after the famous writer tried to go on Tour while leaving behind his wife with four children, one of whom was a newborn...
...Champions like Greg LeMond or Miguel Indurain have "put time into their opponents" in the high alpine stages or in time trials, like today, when riders race only against the clock...
...He had struggled in the mountains...
...While we were in the press area star gazing, Indurain had made several passes through the encampment...
...Instead he feigned indifference to bike racing...
...During several Julys I was traveling on business...
...Inside the Tour's magic kingdom—a pavilion of billowing tents near the start—many of the sponsors had hospitality suites...
...Sam's emergence from the maelstrom saved me at least from a second coffee...
...Rob wandered over with his son, aged 4, and pointed toward Boardman...
...Revenge, however, came quickly, as it often did for the Greeks...
...0* The American Spectator • August 1997 67...
...Twenty-two teams start the race with nine cyclists, and the winner is the inchvidual with the lowest cumulative time from each day's racing...
...For that paper and the New York Times, he writes a daily column on the Tour, which he then edits into a book...
...The Babe in Greg LeMond would have at least said "Hi, kids" or promised to win the time trial...
...Throughout the meal, held at the bank's opulent headquarters, I kept wanting to ask one of the waiters for a jersey or if perhaps there was an old racing bike in the basement that no one was using...
...LeMond's greatness in winning three Tours was a first-class temperament that let him draw strength from the madness of crowds...
...Two kilometers from Bourg St...
...The horror...
...Conrad described his Marlow as having "sunken cheeks, a yellow complexion...and with his arms dropped, the palms of hands outwards,[he] resembled an idol...
...But despite living in Geneva for six years, I had never seen the Tour in person...
...SPECTATOR'S JOURNAL by Matthew Stevenson A Jour With the Tour E ver since I described Sam Abtthe author of many books about the Tour de France—in an academic journal as the "Marlow of professional racing," he and I have been pen pals...
...In a back seat Sam disappeared into the jungle of Tour fans that lined the race course, almost as Marlow described an earlier trip to the interior: "They howled and leaped, and spun, and made faces...
...By contrast, Sam Abt— while an idol to those who admire his books about the Tour—evokes the friendly qualities of Franciscan monks rather than the austerity of an Asian deity...
...He's the best in the world at what he does...
...Each time he drew a crowd, except on the last occasion, when I saw an opening and took the kids over for a ceremonial picture, as though in front of the Lincoln Memorial...
...No one minded a joke at the expense of a moody champion...
...But instead of getting angry with Henry, he reached down, scratched him on the top of his head, and gave a little Navarran whistle that said: "Hey, kid...
...Nevertheless, at Maison du Café, I noticed that even some of the riders had stopped for a last cup, if not the ambiance...
...That sponsorship also has its hearts of darkness I knew from a dinner I had with Mario Conde, now indicted but then chairman of Banesto, the Spanish bank for which Miguel Indurain rode...
...We agreed to meet Sam "at the start, around noontime," as if this were a village race in August, not an alpine time trial to Val d'Isere that would attract tens of thousands...
...Henry had zigged when he should have zagged, and now he was holding up the parade...
...I untangled my son from the spokes, and in a flash Miguel was gone...
...MATTHEW STEVENSON manages a Swiss bank and lives in Geneva...
...but what thrilled you was just the thought of your remote kinship with this wild and passionate uproar...
...But for whatever reason—the concentration of a champion, not enough espresso—Boardman ignored both the children's greeting and my question, as if he were Roger Mans and I was badgering him about breaking Babe Ruth's record...
...What gave the day drama was the sudden vulnerability of Miguel Indurain, the winner of the last five Tours...
...But the business conversation never climbed "beyond category" (Tourspeak for the tall mountains...
...Once after a stage of the Tour of Romandie finished near our Swiss village, my oldest daughter, Helen, then 7, got in the way of Tony Rominger on his way to the podium, and his handlers had shunted her aside as though they were Clint Eastwood protecting the President...
...The first of the Greeks we spotted was the Englishman Chris Boardman, who holds the world record for the longest distance covered in one hour...
...When Miguel turned to head for the start, he found that my son Henry, almost 4, was blocking his front wheel...
...But the day before, a shattering mountain stage through rain, fog and hairpin descents, Boardman had, as riders say, "exploded in the hills" and finished just ahead of the barber shop...
...The horror...
...Pretty tough day yesterday, Chris...
...A few minutes later the greatest cyclist of all-time, the Belgian Eddy Merckx, entered the pantheon, in many ways looking like the Colossus of Rhodes...
...He had handshakes and hellos for his friends, and was oblivious to the fanfarethat engulfed him...
...His day job is to edit the International Herald Tribune, which is published in Paris...
...He lifted the children over the barricades, presented us with passes and them with souvenirs, and led us to a warm-up area where the press can interview the riders...
...I got several snapshots while Miguel chatted with his directeur sportif—this not being the moment to go over my dinner with Mario Conde...
...Finally as the dinner broke up, I congratulated Conde on his team's many wins in the Tour, expecting him to show me the desk where in winter Indurain made loans...
...I gotta Tour to win...
...But for a little boy's father he became the man for all seasons...
...was a phrase first uttered by Mrs...
...L eft to our own devices, Rob and I decided to find lunch for the children and perhaps that second cup of coffee for ourselves...
...With lunch in the children, we were free to return to the pedestals of cycling's Mt...
...I looked at him," as Marlow remembered Kurtz, "as you peer down at a man who is lying at the bottom of a precipice where the sun never shines...
...The Tour de France lasts three weeks in July, consists of twenty-two stages or one-day races, makes a big loop around France although the route varies each year, covers about 2,000 miles, and ends in Paris on the Champs-Elysées in a mad sprint finish...
...He might well have pointed to the center-field wall...
...There was only one road with limited access to Val d'Isere, and a Motorola team car was his last-chance ride...
...The kids had lunch—pieces from a cake the shape of the day's course—and The ultimate cycling mix of business and pleasure...
...but Parisians despaired the association with Gatorade...
...Now his critics could say that even four-year-olds were on his wheel...
...In a sport that celebrates monastic virtues, he even had his family along in a Winnebago...
...The kids said hello, and I asked one of those hard probing questions that no doubt caught the Gan team leader/Cycle Sport columnist off guard:44 The kids had lunch— pieces from a coke the shape of the day's course—and collected freebies from the sponsors...
...On this day he lost a minute in the time trial to Evgeni Berzin and subsequently the Tour...
...He restricted his access to the best tables in France when he described the Frenchman Laurent Fignon, the winner of two Tours, as "a Parisian with Gatorade...
...66 August 1997 • The American Spectator collected freebies from the sponsors, although few lend themselves to retail promotion: Polti manufactures electrical equipment, Mapei is a chemical company, ONCE sells Spanish lottery tickets, and Gan writes insurance—hardly the things to fill a child's treasure bag...
...In this instance Miguel showed his élan...
...But Boardman preferred to sulk—Achilles getting ready for the Trojans on rollers...
...He held out the possibility of VIP passes, and I reciprocated by showing up not only with three of my children, all under the age of eight, but also with my friend Rob, and his two young sons...
Vol. 30 • August 1997 • No. 8
